Re: [DIYbio] Need advice on some plant Genetic Engineering.

I know I wrote a lengthy reply to someone asking about how to do plant genetic engineering some time ago and should still be in the DIYBio archive. Basically email Stan Gelvin at Purdue University for some agrobacterium (GV3101 is a good strain) or source it from your local university if people are working with plants there and start assembling the basic equipment for Molecular cloning, then design primers and lift out the coding sequences for the genes responsible for the desired chemical and stuff those along with regulatory parts into a vector like pCambia which you can get from MarkerGene. Then put that plasmid into agro and tissue culture with selective pressure until you regenerate a transgenic plant. This is a highly simplified version of how to do it but I would strongly suggest to start learning how to tissue culture first since its the most technical and craft-like skill which requires time error and experience. There is a lot that goes into it but I managed to self teach in a few years time with a bit of luck on eBay and a lot of patience. Start with tobacco if you want since its less finicky than arabidopsis as a proof of concept organism then try it on your target plant. I can send you some wild type seeds of Nicotiana tabacum var Petite Havana, my personal favorite model organism for agro based prototyping. Good luck, dont get discouraged, and have fun playing with the dark-green arts!

Sebastian S. Cocioba

On Oct 22, 2015, at 9:18 PM, 'Erik Robb' via DIYbio <diybio@googlegroups.com> wrote: